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Marvel speed vs DC speed
so it's come up a million times in a million threads. it's my contention that the 2 companies have chosen to depict speed differently. dc seems to put a much greater importance on speed in general. it is more widely used, it is used a great deal more and in fact, via the speed force, i would say that the speed limit in dc exceeds the limit in marvel.
now, because of this, there is quite a disparity in terms of speed feats and speed related characters in the 2 companies. i guess my question is this--because marvel doesn't show speed feats from characters the way dc does (in general terms, among the big characters) does that NECESSARILY mean marvel characters are slower, and unable to react to dc levels of speed? is there a point where inferrential evidence can suffice for marvel characters due to the dearth of feats? i'm not even convinced i'm phrasing this all correctly. guess what i'd like to do is start a discussion on speed in general, and more specifically how the companies depict and emphasize them, and the consequences--in the forum--for those differences.
if that makes sense. so, can marvel compete with the dc speedsters??
Theres a huge Flash (wally west) rant floating about the interweb somewhere that sums up the answer to this query pretty nicely. The basic flavour of it is 'Ignoring PIS and CIS, the high-end feats of Wally the West are so ludicrous that if we took them as solid the wally power set would never lose a fight to anyone ever, for ever.'
I would say overall strength AND speed operate on a much more forgiving sliding scale in Marvel than it does in DC (which annoys me btw).
I don't believe in giving benefits of the doubt without there being means of drawing extrapolations or clear cut statements. I believe in consistency.
And DC's portrayal of the wonders of speed is just far more reliable and impressive.
If X person can rebuild a city with his bare hands in the order of seconds, and Y person can somewhat reliably bullet time, there is little reason to give the latter the benefit of the doubt of being able to hang with the former.
Strength is one thing, you can negotiate against strength with many means. You can't negotiate with speed unless you are fast enough in reflexes and/or can produce sufficiently large AOE attacks.
He's one of the few heralds in Marvel who are explicitly demonstrated to have luminal speed levels in things other than just straight line travel--fairly consistently too.
Really, this is not a knock on Marvel, because I love Marvel, but DC characters are more powerful in almost every category, not just in speed, than their Marvel counterparts.
Strength, durability, speed, magic and energy manipulation are all depicted on higher levels in DC. Its just a fact. Marvel tends to go for "realism" a little bit more than DC. And that's probably why Marvel sells better than DC in general. (hell DC learned this lesson a while ago, when they depowered everyone for a while). But to answer the question, the really fast DC characters ARE much faster than their Marvel counterparts.
Superman has lifted infinite weight, his punches have ruptured time and space and reality, and that's just Superman. There's DC characters who've been depicted as towing around solar systems.
I don't even think "travel" speed should come into it. "Travel speed" should just be called "space travel capability" because there's plenty of characters that can generate the energy needed to propel through space from point A to B but are not in anyway speedy or speedsters.
Speedsters will do things like create mini hurricanes or tornadoes in atmosphere with their speed. There's plenty of guys with "travel speed" that can't do that.
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Just feel like there are alot more speedsters in DC. Also alot more heralds that use their speed to their advantage. Marvel doesn't have that many fast guys. I feel like they focus on healing factor stuff and physic abilities.
I do feel like magic use is pretty even in both companies.
Developing a fictional dimension (the speed force) from which those connected to it can a.) harness nigh-infinite amounts of speed, and b.) defy any/all 'rules' normally associated with moving at the speeds they do, is one of the best ideas DC ever had. The speed force gives them a quick and easy answer as to how/why their speedsters can casually shatter the laws of physics on any given day.
Marvel tends to abide by the rules a lot more where speed is concerned, imo. That's likely one of the main reasons why their speedsters are, in general, thought of as inferior to DC's.
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Last edited by Galan007 on Apr 4th, 2011 at 09:59 PM
Yeah Spcetravel is just a plot thing, even stupid earth spaceships can travel almost instantly from point A to point B no matter where point B is in the universe.
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Writers have switched company so many times throughout the decades that it makes it rather ridiculous to believe that when they are at Marvel "writers portray speed differently, just because". No, fact of the matter is that Marvel characters simply aren't that fast, with a few exceptions - like Runner, Makkari, Quicksilver, Northstar - who are closer to the top DC levels of superspeed. It's just that the characters that they want to have it the most - Thor, Thanos, Surfer - don't, and it hurts.
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Apr 4th, 2011 09:19 PM
